Meet The Blogger: Arabella From Lost In The Story

Looking for some new blogs to follow? Then you have come to the right place! I created this weekly feature on my site to help my readers discover new content creators and expand their online reading habits by interviewing a new blogger every Thursday. Having started back in January this has proved ever popular and I have certainly enjoyed finding new blogs to devour myself so I hope you do too!

Anyway, on to today’s featured blogger and I am sharing my chat with Arabella from Lost In The Story so lets jump straight in and find out all about her and her blog.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your blog

Hi there lovelies I’m Arabella, the oddball behind Lost In The Story. I’m twenty years old and study creative and professional writing at university. My blog is a quiet corner of the internet, a place where you can go to switch off for a bit. If I had to pin it down then I’d say it’s a lifestyle blog where I documented my recovery of an eating disorder. Now that I no longer suffer from the eating disorder I share my photography, share advice on dealing with mental health illnesses, talk about sustainable living and books… I love a good book.

How long have you been blogging?

In total I’ve been blogging for three years now, but Lost In The Story is my second blog and is two years old. My first blog was a lot more casual and a bit all over the place. Once I got the feel of blogging I fell down the rabbit hole fast and decided after a year that I wanted to take this seriously and I launched Lost In The Story.

What or who inspired you to create your blog?

I’d never heard about blogs until my dad suggested I start one. At the time I was at college studying forensic science but was deeply unhappy with my course and subject choice, I wanted to write. Naturally my parents were hesitant towards me wanting to apply to study writing at university, studying science would have been a much more stable career option, becoming a writer not so much. I’m not sure if they only suggested it in the hopes of me getting bored of writing and deterring me from wanting to study it at university, but no matter what their motives were I’m grateful my dad introduced me to it. Three years later I’m still blogging, I’m at my dream university pursuing my dream job and I have no plans of stopping.

What’s your favourite thing about running your blog?

Good question, I think it has to be the freedom to connect with so many others through writing. I can’t think of many other jobs/ hobbies where you can connect with so many people all around the world with your work.

How do you stay motivated?

I allowed myself the the freedom to take breaks when needed. If you’re a new blogger the best bit of advice I can give is to have a bunch of fully wrote and edited posts ready to be published sitting in your drafts pile. When you feel motivated to write, write your socks off! Don’t stop at writing one post, try and churn out two or three. Post one of them but keep the rest in storage. Then say in a few weeks time you’re not feeling motivated to write, simply give one of your stored posts a quick scan to make sure it’s ok and publish it. Click that publish button and relax, you’ve got a post out and there’s nothing to worry about. By doing this I never force myself to write when I’m not feeling motivated, I won’t turn my blog into a chore and by not viewing it as a chore I rarely feel unmotivated. It’s a pleasure to write as I never force myself to do it, I just make sure I have enough posts in storage.

What’s been the most challenging part of your blogging journey to date?

Comparison is my biggest challenge and I think it always will be. I really struggle with the numbers and I always try to be as honest as I can about it. Sometimes I look at my blogging buddies and see how in only a few months of blogging they’ve almost got double the amount readers I have and they’re a whole lot more successful than me. When this happens I go back to the core of my blog, I started it to help people, and I really have to dwell on that. I have to remind myself that I’m here to help people, not to feed my ego.

Tell us about your favourite blog post

Favourite blog post is the one where I finally got to tell my readers that I’d recovered from my eating disorder.

Describe your blog in four words

Chilled, comforting, hopeful and honest

What are your future hopes and dreams for your blog?

I want to reach more people who are struggling with eating disorders and share my experiences and my recovery to inspire. I’d like to start doing more public speaking and talking at conferences about eating disorders and recovery. My main aim is to one day do a TedTalk.